(5 of 5)
Himmler at Home. The Himmler villa is in Grunewald, suburb of Berlin. Not nearly so pretentious a residence as the Göring palace, the Goebbels Schwanenwerder estate or the Hitler Chancellery, it is quite as well guarded. A medical specialist summoned recently to examine Frau Himmler was reported to have had to submit credentials and answer questions to six different guards before arriving at her boudoir.
In the Reich's cast of stellar political actors Hermann Göring has usually been labeled Nazi No. 2, Dr. Goebbels No. 3. Herr Himmler would probably come fourth, but not necessarily so. No secret is it that he has aspired to the posts of Minister of the Interior and of War. He is intensely jealous of the Army officer group and last year went so far as to try to remove General Werner von Fritsch, then Commander-in-Chief of the Army, from his job by charging homosexuality. The General was ousted—for other reasons—but in the face of the plain truth that he was definitely not homosexual, the Army demanded and got General von Fritsch's public exoneration.
Many big Nazi editors and publishers are now strong Himmler men. Five Cabinet members have accepted the honorary 55 badge. Herr Himmler can perform important favors and no one can say him nay. His resources and funds are great. The fines he imposes, the money his men take from frontier smugglers, reportedly go into his organization. Well-informed people said the Jewish plunderings were to replenish the 55 and Gestapo coffers. His devotion to the Führer has never been doubted; but neither can it be denied that the Führer is deeply indebted to him. While Dr. Goebbels has played a spectacular but lone hand at propaganda and Field Marshal Göring Has been busy solving the economic needs of the Reich, Police Chief Himmler has been building with his 55 men and Gestapo a personal political machine. Some day in his climb to power he may skip a few rungs of the Nazi ladder>